Serious environmental problems arise when a deep water oil well fails, thereby leaving an open pipe or conduit spilling crude oil into the ocean at great depths. An oil leak at such great depths compound the problem because the leak is beyond the normal acceptable scuba diving depths due to the great hydrostatic pressures at these depths. Thus, humans cannot work directly with the leak.
Serious environmental problems may also arise when an emergency condition presents itself and the equipment relied upon to shut down the well does not perform properly. Exemplary emergency equipment may include a blow out preventer. As a result, the well is not shut down, thereby leaving the well in an open condition and leading to a potentially catastrophic result for the well, the personnel operating the well, and the environment.
Significant costs can be incurred should a deep water oil well need to be closed due to an emergency. In most instances, the primary apparatus and procedure employed to close an oil well during an emergency permanently closes the well. Such an apparatus may be a blowout preventer. If the oil well is permanently closed, a new well will need to be drilled to recover the oil, which requires significant costs and exhausts much valuable time. A need exists for an apparatus and a method that may close and re-open a deep water oil well as desired without the necessity of permanently closing a well and drilling any additional wells.